We Had a Moment
by Midnight Parallax
Summary: During 4x12 Reprise, Fargo reflects on his rivalry with Zane over Jo in the other timeline while under the influence of Holly's NLP songs.


**Eureka **

**We Had a Moment**

_During 4x12 Reprise, under the influence of Holly's NLP songs, Fargo reflects on his rivalry with Zane in the other timeline. _

* * *

Fargo couldn't believe that Zane had thrown him into Jo's security holding cell for zapping Holly with the FTL device. Dr. Marten deserved it for coming into his town and snitching on him to Senator Wen. He had worked his ass off in both timelines to get where he was now. Being in the director's chair, Fargo could finally write his own ticket after years of being Nathan Stark's errand boy.

Jo was still around to take him down a notch though. As head of GD security, she loved to remind him that even though he was her boss, his safety and status were maintained by her. They were actually friends in this timeline, which was more than he ever would have expected to have with her in their other life.

Fargo had always attributed things never going anywhere with Jo in their original timeline to the arrival of Zane Donovan. He never got the attraction, but supposedly girls liked bad boys – and Jo Lupo was still a girl and the bad boy persona had won her over.

It was one of the few differences between himself and Zane. They had both been teen prodigies at MIT, but in different programs so they hadn't interacted very much. Fargo had been mildly offended that Zane hadn't recalled this fact, but he had been kicked out during their third year for hacking the registrar to get a girl's phone number. Eventually, Zane had ended up with his PhD from UC Berkeley, because only those DARPA rejected hippies would overlook his rebellious nature.

The idea that his arch-nemesis was a PhD from Berkeley irked Fargo to no end. And he was tall. _Why did he have to be tall?_ Fargo seethed from behind the safety glass of the GD security holding cell.

Jo stepped out of the office to use the restroom, while Zane had his laptop on her desk, trying to figure out what happened to Holly Marten after Fargo zapped her. Fargo could see _this_ Zane was already trying to weasel his way into Jo's life. Why had Fargo confessed everything when he thought they would die in space? Zane was more determined than ever to win Jo back after learning that they had. Even if he never deserved her in either lifetime…

Sometimes, Fargo felt like their rivalry for Jo's heart had never been a fair fight because he had never really fought for her.

There had been a moment between Fargo and Jo when it turned out that the town's shared Zorro dream belonged to her. For one brief moment, Fargo had been Jo's knight in shining armor, or in their case, black polyester. While he sat with her in the infirmary that afternoon, he wondered if maybe, just maybe, that dream showed that he had a shot with her. She had hooked up with Taggart and a robot, so it wasn't like dating Fargo could be that much worse…

But he had been a coward. He never asked her out, and things between them went back to normal.

A few weeks later, Fargo learned from Vincent that Jo had gone on a brunch date with Zane Donovan. Was she really willing to date anyone but him? Whenever Jo was eating at Café Diem, she had a rule that Fargo had to be at least one seat away from her or she would taser him. But she was having brunch with a hacker on the FBI's most wanted list?

He had tried to play it off that Jo wouldn't be interested in a mess like Zane for long. But this was one of those moments when having a gay best friend didn't come in handy. He suppressed the urge to throw up his entire lunch as Vincent waxed poetic on the color of Zane's eyes. His coffee wasn't so lucky that time he overheard Jo telling Zoe Carter that she didn't think that she was good enough for Zane. Had the town's water supply been sufficiently checked for lead or some other type of contamination that made people delusional?

Fargo would've thrown himself into his work, except Zane had become GD's golden boy. It had taken Fargo two years to get Nathan Stark to grant him access to Section 5's budget, meanwhile Zane had been given instant security clearance with Allison Blake's blessing. Whenever General Mansfield had a new prototype to be built, Zane was on the top of his draft list. Fargo felt lucky that anyone even remembered that he still worked at GD.

Later, when Eva Thorne had singled Zane out as her top candidate for her top-secret projects, Fargo had resigned himself to the background of GD. Even Sheriff Carter had warmed up to Zane after he began dating Jo – they had driven up to Seattle for a Mariners' game together one weekend. In the Eureka that they left behind, Zane Donovan had been the blue ribbon and Douglas Fargo was barely hanging on to third place.

Three years. Fargo had lived in Zane Donovan's shadow for three years.

It had been frustrating to watch how Zane was so busy with work that he never really appreciated Jo, not in the way Fargo thought she was supposed to be. He forgot dates and anniversaries because he was too caught up with his next big project at GD. Fargo never understood what Zane was trying to prove. Wasn't any of part of his life ever enough?

Even when Julia had swapped bodies with Jo and began flirting with Fargo in public, Zane had no regard for him as a threat to their relationship. Instead, Zane was more concerned about Jo's strange behavior than jealous that she might have left him for Fargo.

It was then that Fargo realized that any chance with Jo had gone the way of the do-do bird and woolly mammoth – totally extinct.

There had been a brief period of victory when Jo and Zane had broken up for a month after she found out that he hadn't told his mother about her. At work, he ended up missing a crucial deadline and was dropped from a Section 5 project. Zane used that spare time to invite his mother for a visit to Eureka and he patched things up with Jo. Then there was the Christmas waffle iron incident of 2009. Fargo was not sure what Zane had done to recover from that particularly poor judgment call, but somehow the couple was seen kissing again by New Year's Eve.

When Fargo and Jo were locked in jail together back in 1947, she had confessed that Zane had asked her to marry him and she had hesitated. He had just caught her off guard, but the answer had been yes. It was one moment that she could never get back to again. Fargo's heart broke for her. Whatever his feelings were about Zane, he didn't want Jo to get hurt.

The Zane in this timeline was oblivious to all of this as he tapped away on his keyboard. Fargo really wanted to hit him as he watched history repeating itself.

How had _this_ Fargo not ended up with Jo when there was no Zane in the picture? Clearly, he had focused all of his energy on taking over GD, which he had done rather successfully, if not exactly by the most ethical means. Fargo had a feeling that Jo had gotten the position as head of GD security because the Fargo in this timeline had been hopelessly in love with her too.

After they realized that they were stuck in this version of Eureka, Jo had been ready and willing to move on from Zane. He was off dating Zoe Carter to piss off the Sheriff, and it left Fargo with a second chance with Jo… Except by the time Fargo came to that realization, this Zane had started to fall for Jo and Fargo knew that she wouldn't hold out for long.

"You know you'll just screw things up with her again," Fargo said as he leaned on the safety glass holding him in. "So why don't you do everyone a favor and back off? She's been through enough already without you chasing after her like a six-year-old with his first crush."

Zane looked up from his laptop. "As far as I know, the only thing that screwed stuff up between us was that time shift. She and my other self were about to start picking out china patterns and minivans."

"Your other self was a jerk who went to Russia for a month and only called home once," Fargo snapped. Okay, that was a low blow considering that Zane was infected with some weird fungus at the time that caused him to act weird, which this Zane would not have known about.

"And what were you to Jo then?" asked Zane pointedly. "Were you her ex? Her best friend? Did you let her cry on your shoulder after we fought hoping that this would be the time that she finally left me for you?"

Now Fargo really hated Zane. He had been none of those things. The only thing he had was that day in the infirmary when she let him stay with her knowing that she had dreamed that they had kissed. He wanted to touch her hand and say it would all be better, but he was too afraid to make a move. Would it have changed anything between them? Would it have been the first step to a romance like Han and Leia's? He would never know, because he hadn't taken the leap.

"We had a moment," Fargo said.

Zane blinked. "A moment? That's it?"

"Yeah, before you showed up we had this really great moment where it turned out that I was the superhero of her dreams, not Nathan Stark," Fargo informed him, realizing how dumb that sounded out loud only after he'd said it. "You had to be there."

"Okay, I seriously have no idea what you're talking about, and honestly I don't really care," Zane replied. "You had plenty of chances to get with her... But I'm guessing from the way she threw that ring at me, she wasn't quite as over me as you would've liked…"

Fargo punched the safety glass pretending it was Zane's stupid face. As he did, Jo walked back into the office.

"Hey, I just had that cleaned!" Jo scolded him.

"I think I need first aid," Fargo winced as he held his sore hand.

"Well you should've thought about that before punching my safety glass," Jo said.

"Zane was being an ass," Fargo argued back.

Jo looked at Zane who put on his best _'Who? Me?'_ face as if he had no idea what was going on, which meant exactly the opposite. Jo shook her head and pulled out an ice pack from the refrigerator under her desk and handed it to Fargo through one of the air holes.

"I can't leave you idiots alone for five minutes," Jo sighed. Her phone buzzed with a text message. "Carter may have found a lead on Holly, but I need to meet him in town. Can you two not kill each other while I'm gone?"

"Scout's honor," said Zane.

"You were a never a scout," Jo pointed out.

"But Fargo was," Zane replied.

"He's lucky I'm in here and he's out there," Fargo said. "Or I'd kick his ass using my Shotokan training."

"Watching _The Karate Kid_ twice in one weekend does not make you an expert on karate," Zane shot back.

"I might just kill both of you when I get back and pin it on Holly," Jo said as she walked out.

"Well, I'd love to stay and chat about how you want to steal _my_ ex, but I've got better stuff to do," Zane said as he picked up his laptop to leave as well.

"Why can't you just let her go?" Fargo asked. "You two hate each other in this timeline, so why the sudden change of heart?"

Zane shrugged. "What's the old saying – 'There's a thin line between love and hate'? Well, Lupo and I have always gotten under each other's skin, and I'd like to try another method – for science."

Fargo glared at him as he walked out of the office. "Well, science says that you're an asshat!"

"Bite me!" Zane replied without looking back.

Suddenly, Fargo remembered that they were in GD and he was the director this time around. _This_ Zane was the town pariah and still on probation. Fargo could banish him to the mucus labs until they both retired and no one would bat an eyelash. Jo would probably get a kick out of it.

Then why Fargo feel like he hadn't really won anything?

* * *

**A/N:** I was re-watching _3x01 Bad to the Drone_ when this idea came to me – Fargo was always trying to find his place at Global Dynamics/Eureka, while Zane had Jo, Allison, Nathan and Eva clamoring for his attention from the start. Fargo must have resented Zane on some level. In _4x12 Reprise_, the _Eye of the Tiger_ lyrics seemed more relevant to the rivalry between Zane and Fargo than his feelings towards Holly. Also, it's established that there's a full year of events that take place between Season 3 and Season 4 that happened off screen, and my mind wanted to fill in the blanks for what Jo and Zane were up to during that year.


End file.
